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Orphan Black Season 4, Episode 6 Recap: You’re Betamax

A gut-wrenching episode of Orphan Black! But is that a good thing, or is the series twisting the plot yet again because … well, they can? We’ll get to that as we discuss “The Scandal of Altruism.”

First, we have a Highlander-esque flashback! Beth is back in black (and blonde) as we, the audience, see what voyeur Art couldn’t: where Beth went after she left her apartment with the handgun. She plans to assassinate Mommie Dearest herself, Susan Duncan! There’s much more to come in this flashback, and it’s too bad the regular characters can’t watch this at home like us, because boy, these flashbacks would’ve come in handy!

We check in with a bunch of folks in rapid succession:

The Eww Couple of Susan Duncan and DNA-Boy-Toy Ira have a post-coitus discussion of their options, and we learn that Ira does have the same potential for “glitching” as the other Castor clones. Still, Susan sees hope for him “as long as Sarah listens to reason.” Uh-huh. Susan, you haven’t been paying attention to this series, have you?

Cosima tells Sarah all about her BrightBorn experience and the chat with Susan Duncan and Evil Cho. There’s a deal to be made, especially with the clock continuing to tick on Cosima’s life.

Over at the police station, Art quickly steers Detective (and Neolution spy) Darkwing Duko away from Krystal, who has come to complain about the conspiracy “targeting beauty professionals.” As misguided as she is, her quest for answers could cause a lot of problems for Clone Club. The solution: Felix poses as “Inspector Dawkins, from the Yard.” Krystal: “Which yard?” “Scotland Yard.” It’s one of the few bits of levity in a brutal episode. No room for Hendrix hijinks in this one.

Sarah goes to BrightBorn to talk terms with Susan and Evil, and she learns that each maggot bot is given a different task. Leekie’s maggot bot was designed to impede the onset of Alzheimer’s. Sarah’s bot was designed to make her sick. Neolution wanted to know why Sarah’s biology was different than her sestras’, so her maggot bot was playing Whack-a-Mole with her immune system to collect answers. Sarah has important info to share, too: Kendall Malone has cancer. However, this is potentially good news for Clone Club! Cosima and Scott can use the cancer cells’ reproduction to separate Leda from Castor in Kendall’s wacky DNA.

Sarah’s condition from giving those cells to Susan? “We’re not saving Castor.” Thank you, Sarah! She’ll give only Leda cells so that Cosima and the other sestras can be cured. Ira isn’t happy that his Mrs. Robinson refuses to go to bat for him after all the times he’s, uh, batted for her, and he gets all Morrissey for the rest of the episode. Evil Cho and Cosima then remove Sarah’s maggot bot in a surprisingly risky operation, and we’ll very glad that Cosima was there to keep an eye on Evil. Hmmm, I don’t trust her!

Mrs. S isn’t happy about the planned cell swap. “You bartered my mother behind my back!” (Coincidentally, that’s the plot of the lost episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.) But things do move along: Scott begins harvesting the Leda cells while Susan and Kendall have an unpleasant chat. Then things go south fast! Kendall is nabbed on her way out of the meeting, Sarah tosses bleach on the cell samples and accuses Susan of pulling a fast one, and Cosima is in the grasp of Evil Cho. Susan pleads innocence, so the Kendall-napper had to be the scorned Ira, right? Nope! It’s Darkwing Duko, who takes Kendall to an abandoned field, where they wait….

We learn via flashback that Beth spared Susan’s life after hearing Susan say, “I’m your creator” and claiming that she loved Beth and all the Leda gals. Susan says that if Beth kills her, it won’t solve anything, it’ll give the script editors heart failure, and it’ll probably result in all the Ledas being killed. So, wonder Sarah and Art, where did the blood on Beth’s hands come from?

From Evil Cho, that’s where! She orchestrated the assassination attempt to knock Susan off the top perch of Neolution, and Beth beats the crap out of her when she realizes she’d been set up. Darkwing Duko stops Beth, but Beth believes Evil’s claim that the only way to keep the other clones safe (at least for a while) is if Beth kills herself and takes her crusade with her. Honestly, this part seemed like a bit of a stretch. If Beth knows that Neolution is going to keep manipulating the clones’ lives – or worse – then what benefit is truly gained by her suicide?

In the present, Evil shows up at the field with Cosima in tow. Her plan is to kill Kendall and incinerate the body so that no genetic info can be retrieved. Essentially, Evil wants all the clones to go away and die. Direct genetic manipulation is where all the fun is! Clones? Feh. That’s competing tech, and obsolete competing tech at that. She tells Cosima coldly, “You’re Betamax.”

With that, Darkwing shoots Kendall in the head and sets fire to the van. Evil doesn’t kill Cosima – probably to avoid a revenge spree from Sarah – but before she leaves, she rubs a bit of salt in the wound: “Delphine Cormier was shot dead in the Dyad parking garage. Tell Sarah it’s over. Or Beth died for nothing.”

And that’s it. Any hope of a cure for the sestras’ condition is gone. Kendall is dead. Delphine is dead (maybe? I bet not). And Clone Club seemingly has no cards left to play. As I said, brutal. But not really fulfilling. There was no “wow” or “oh my god” moment in this episode.

The Great:

The fakeout with Ira. I fell for it, too, just like Sarah.

Krystal’s marvelous inability to understand why “Inspector Dawkins” was English if he’s from Scotland Yard.

The climactic scene in the field. It was framed and paced extremely well.

The Not-So-Great:

Let me get this straight: There’s yet another Big Bad to deal with? No sooner do we think we’ve reached the top of the Neolution/Dyad/BrightBorn pyramid than we find out that Evil Cho is really calling the shots.

The WTF:

I understand the need for super-secrecy, but is Scott really delicately harvesting cells on a table in Felix’s studio? Dude! You don’t know who’s been ON that table!

Okay, so this incredibly important research that Scott and Cosima were conducting that could literally save Cosima’s life wasn’t even backed up??? That’s an oversight that Krystal or Alison would make. Not Cosima.

By the same token, Scott and Cosima didn’t make sure to harvest any of Kendall’s cells prior to the Susan Duncan meeting? They knew what she wanted, and more importantly, they knew they couldn’t trust Susan/Neolution. Clone Club made a bunch of uncharacteristically dumb moves this episode, which is maddening because the stupidity was Because Plot Reasons, and not anything particularly believable.

So, after two episodes of “is Adele really Felix’s sister,” she just kind of disappears stage left. Again, there better have been a point to Adele’s introduction, and a really good one, because at this point everything involving her and Felix smacks of little more than timewasting episode filler.